


The Curve of Your Eyes

by keepitdreamin



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Magical Tattoos, Marauders' Era, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-07 19:29:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16859962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keepitdreamin/pseuds/keepitdreamin
Summary: "On his 17th birthday, Sirius gets a tattoo, to the surprise of absolutely no one."That's how it begins but not how it ends. A story about Sirius's various tattoos and also his undying love for Remus.





	The Curve of Your Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, this is literally out of nowhere but I found half of this in an old note on my phone and since I'm avoiding my creative writing work for Thursday, I decided to finish it.
> 
> Also, I just checked and apparently Sirius is actually the oldest but canon is dead and I wanted him to be the youngest so whatever.

On his 17th birthday, Sirius gets a tattoo, to the surprise of absolutely no one.

James, Peter and Remus had all gotten watches on their 17th birthdays, the tradition of welcoming a wizard into adulthood and all that rot. Peter’s was new and shiny. James’s was his dad’s and before that his granddad’s. Remus’s was secondhand, a little battered, a little scuffed but good nonetheless, just like him. Sirius is the youngest of the group and he sees all of them receive their watches and pretends like it’s not a big deal.

(Sirius, who’d run away and been disowned a couple months prior, receives his watch in the mail a week before his actual birthday in an unaddressed package, but there’s no mistaking a Black family owl. He opens the box cautiously, not putting it past his parents to have cursed anything they sent. Inside, there’s no card, no letter, not even a scrap of a note, just the clearly smashed up bits of watch. Sirius forces himself to laugh and make light of the whole thing even as he feels a little sick.)

He sneaks out through Hogsmeade the afternoon of his birthday. James would’ve come with him, Remus too maybe, but Sirius had entrusted them with setting up the party, so he makes the trip on his own, apparating all the way to Diagon Alley. He walks purposefully, stands up straighter and tries to look older since everyone and their mother knows that it’s not a Hogwarts holiday. He figures if anybody asks he can pretend to be a tourist from a tourist from France (if there’s one good thing to be said about the Black’s, it’s that they made sure their children knew multiple languages). But nobody asks and he makes his way to the shop undeterred.

He has an appointment which would almost definitely shock his friends. He _has_ actually for once in his life thought something through and planned accordingly. He had sent an owl a few months ago and exchanged a couple since, going over the design, and a final confirmation last week. He’s prepared. That doesn’t stop the nerves that grip his stomach as he approaches the storefront (a red painted door and a neat little sign that reads ‘Timber’s Tattoos’ in gold script). He forces himself to take a deep, steadying breath and he steps in.

A bored assistant behind the front desk looks up from her magazine as he enters and says, “Welcome to Timber’s. Do you have an appointment?”

Sirius nods and firms up his voice before speaking. “Yes. Black, Sirius Black.”

He fills out a bunch of papers while he waits, waivers and such, and the assistant double checks his wand for his age. While she does that, he notices a small inked bird that flutters around on her left hand and jumps seamlessly to her right when she brings them together. She notices him noticing and even cracks a smile when she hands back his wand.

He waits for a little while more, trying not to show his anxiety though his grip on his wand is probably a little too tight. God, he wishes that he’d asked James or Remus to come along (not Peter, he had instantly expressed his distaste for anything involving needles, looking more than a little sick when Sirius had told them his plan).

It’s not that long though till a door opens up and a woman steps out rolling her shoulders, obviously a little stiff. She hasn’t pulled on her cloak yet and as she turns to speak to the assistant, Sirius can see that she’s wearing a backless shirt and underneath _that_ , he sees the dark lines of newly applied ink, forming two large wings that shift and flutter across her back. She pulls on her cloak eventually and leaves with a nod and smile at the assistant and Sirius, and it’s only a few more moments before a small bell rings and the assistant gestures at him. “You can head on back.”

The tattoo artist is nice and more engaging than his assistant. He shakes Sirius’s hand and then offers him a seat but not, he notices, in the one surrounded by the special instruments. The artist waves his hand at Sirius’s question before he even asks it. “Oh don’t worry, we’ll get to that. I just wanted to go over the design one more time, see if there’s any changes you want made first.”

They go over the design again together and Sirius only wants to add one small element, and then with a little bit of wandwork, Sirius can see it on himself for the first time. He stares at his wrist, breath catching for a moment, and when the artist asks if everything’s right, he can only nod.

The actually tattooing process takes a few hours, even for something as relatively small as Sirius’s (he doesn’t want to _know_ how long the last woman’s wings had taken). Half of it of course is the enchantments. Some are already in the ink, but even more need to be performed throughout the inking process, which otherwise, Sirius is given to understand is much like a muggle tattoo. The enchantments help get the movement right, the pattern accurate, the ink long lasting as well as adding a slight Glamour to keep muggles from noticing the movement.

When he’s done, his wrist is a little sore, but he’s thrilled with the results. The artists gives him a little jar of salve he should apply for the next month or so and a pamphlet with instructions on upkeep charms and shakes his hand before Sirius leaves.

He pays the assistant and he can’t stop smiling the whole way back to Hogwarts.

 

Dinner’s over with by the time Sirius gets back, so he heads straight up to the tower. As soon as the portrait swings open, James squawks at him, “We’re not ready yet Pads!”

Sirius just laughs and bundles in, taking in the handful of other students--probably press ganged into service by James--who are helping the other three Marauders setting up decorations and refreshments. Sirius looks back to James, whose eyes are suddenly very bright. “You got it done then?”

Sirius begins unwinding his scarf and smirks. “Come on, I’ll show you upstairs.” He snags Remus on the way, throwing an arm around his neck and pulling him away from the punch bowl with only mild protests, James laughing behind them. Peter scurries after them when James yells “Oi!” to get his attention and waves him over.

The three of them sit patiently on James’s bed--well, Peter and Remus sit patiently and James bounces around like an oversized baby--while Sirius, basking in the anticipation and the fact that it’s his birthday, slowly takes off his school cloak, revealing the muggle gear he usually prefers (a t-shirt that’s actually James’s, jeans and a leather jacket they had given him for his _last_ birthday).

James finally can’t take it anymore and asks, “So what’d you get Pads? I can’t believe you wouldn’t tell me.” He chatters for a second and Sirius grins as he slips off his jacket and then takes the two steps to the other bed and sticks out his wrist.

James immediately stops talking and they all peer down at his wrist and the new ink there. James and Peter are absorbed studying it, but Remus, after one glance, glances up sharply at Sirius who meets his gaze and smiles just as sharply back.

Because see, instead of a watch to mark him into adulthood, Sirius had given himself a calendar of the only cycle he really cares about. On his wrist is a moon, currently waning and not quite at half, which would exactly match the moon rising tonight. Around the moon, a series of symbols orbit in a continuous lazy circle. Some are arithmancy, key components of the enchantments of the tattoo. The others are flowers, linked together and around the symbols. They’re seasonal and only two are blooming right now, the rest closed buds. In a slightly smaller orbit within that ring and slightly faster, is a small star. His _own_ star, the last minute addition.

James pokes at a flower and laughs when it furls up at the touch, which draws Sirius out of the staring contest he’s been having with Remus. He feels a little dizzy and breathless and like something _important_ is going to happen soon. James soon starts inundating him with questions which Peter quickly joins in with, and Sirius answers them happily. Remus though, stays mostly quiet till they head back down to finish setting up for the party before guests arrive.

 

Later, after Sirius has had only maybe half a cup of spiked punch, he wanders up to their room. For some reason, he’s not in the mood to drink tonight, his skin feels tingly and there’s something in the air and he thinks he wants to be sober for it. The party is still in full swing in the common room and nobody else seems to have the same feeling as Sirius about drinking and even _Evans_ has let her hair down a little. He’s looking for a little bit of quiet and--yes. He grins when he opens the door and spots Remus clearly sitting on his bed with a book open. So Moony to duck out of a party to _read_.

Sirius walks over and without invitation sits beside him. Moony doesn’t even scoot over so they’re pressed rather close and Sirius feels warm and giddy and like he can take on the whole world.

“Why aren’t you at your party?” Remus asks quietly. They’re the only ones in here and the sounds from the common room are barely audible (he’ll have to remember to thank Lily for her _excellent_ silencing charms later) and Sirius gets it, not wanting to break the stillness up here.

“It’s _my_ party, I can do what I like,” Sirius points out just as quiet. “And I could ask you the same thing. What could _possibly_ be more interesting in a book than your best mate’s 17th birthday?”

Remus shrugs and Sirius deftly swipes the book away. When he does, Remus’s eyes are immediately drawn to the dark ink on his wrist. The flowers twist slowly and the bright speck of a star orbits the still moon. His lips part slightly like he wants to say something but he just breathes. Sirius asks, reckless and a little more breathy than he intended, “Do you like it Moony?”

Remus looks up, catches his eyes and his pupils are blown out, huge, and before Sirius can really think about it they’re kissing. He has no way of knowing who actually makes the first move, maybe they’d even leaned in simultaneously, but he doesn’t really care anyway because Remus is _kissing him_. They break apart both a little breathless and Sirius grins widely. “I knew 17 was going to be the best birthday!” he says triumphantly and Remus rolls his eyes but falls into a laugh when Sirius pulls him close into a hug.

 

* * *

 

Two nights after ‘The Incident,’ Sirius lies awake in his bed, listening to the faint ticking of the wall clock and the rustling sounds of the others till they eventually fall silent. Sirius is miserable, more miserable than he’s ever been in his life and sleep won’t come to him. He lies there for hours just staring up at his bed hangings, until there’s the faintest noise of cloth and the unmistakable pad of bare feet on the floor and his own curtains are being drawn back. He stares wide-eyed as Remus climbs into his bed, drawing the curtain back behind him so they’re in the dark.

“Moony wha--?”

“I’m still mad at you,” Remus interrupts, whispering sharply, and then he sighs, a familiar painful sigh that makes Sirius move on autopilot, making space for Remus like he has since third year when Remus finally admitted he needed help after transformations. He moves and tugs the blankets back so that Remus can lay down. Sirius is surprised again when he reaches out, tugging Sirius closer to him. Remus adjusts them so that he has his head resting on Sirius’s chest and Sirius has his arms wrapped tightly around his chest. This close, Sirius can feel the faint tremors wracking through Remus’s frame and he adjusts his hold to run a hand soothingly down his back.

“I’m still mad,” he repeats, quieter now. “But everything hurts and I feel wretched and I can’t sleep and I just… I _need_ you Sirius.” His voice breaks on Sirius’s name and he ducks his face against Sirius’s chest to muffle his crying. Sirius holds him as tight as he dares and hides his own face in Remus’s hair to quiet his own tears till they both fall asleep, sad and exhausted and tear soaked.

The next morning, Sirius wakes up to find Remus already gone. They don’t talk at all that day. Sirius doesn’t really talk to anyone except when Flitwick asks him a question, and he doesn’t sit in his usual spots in class or at meals, and though James and Peter both send worrying looks over at him, neither of them try and break the self-imposed punishment. That night when the castle is all asleep, Remus climbs back into Sirius’s bed and Sirius whispers his apologies into his curls and Remus holds him so tightly that he has bruises in the morning but he doesn’t care.

The pattern repeats for a week and then one day as he’s walking into History of Magic, ready to head to the far corner he’d been sitting in, Remus kicks out his usual chair. He doesn’t say anything and he doesn’t even look up from his book, but there’s no mistaking the gesture. Sirius hesitates a moment before carefully sliding into the seat. When he does, James on his other side bumps into his shoulder and offers a smile and Sirius cautiously smiles back.

Remus still doesn’t talk to him that day, but he silently passes him a quill when Sirius realizes he doesn’t have one in his bag and he lets their feet rest against each other for the rest of class.

(That summer, Remus goes with him to a muggle tattoo shop and lets him squeeze his hand while he gets a line of poetry tattooed on his chest, over his heart. Later, Sirius will whisper the line into Remus’s ear in a way that makes him shiver, _"_ _La courbe de tes yeux fait le tour de mon coeur.”_ Later, Remus will gently trace the letters as they’re lying in bed and try to hide his blush in Sirius’s neck when Sirius says, “I love you, you know.” Later, Remus will hug Sirius from behind as he’s making dinner and says in between kisses to Sirius’s neck, “I love you too. So much.”)

 

* * *

 

 

James goes with him for his fifth tattoo when he’s 20 because James is considering one of his own and wants to see the process. In addition to the moon on his wrist and the poem on his chest, he has a pair of bees that buzz around his ankle and a rose blooming on his shoulder. The new one is a bonfire, based off a photo taken in the Potter's back yard last summer, a large flame and embers that trail up and blend into the stars overhead. It’s on his hip this time, a larger one than any of his others.

The artist, a different one than the last few because she specializes in flames, notices the one on his wrist as they’re prepping and admires it for a moment. She laughs abruptly. “Oh that’s interesting. The star orbiting the moon, I haven’t seen that before.” It’s an offhand comment and Sirius laughs along as she gets started but James furrows his brow. He’s mostly quiet for a while after that but Sirius doesn’t put much thought into it.

When he’s done a few hours later, hip sore and with a semi-stern warning not to be too “active” for a while (“If you gotta, you let yourself be a pillow princess for a week hon, okay?” she’d said pretty bluntly and Sirius couldn’t stop a blush while James had barely been able to hold back his laughter), they head out and walk back to their flats. Sirius kind of wants to just apparate straight home and stand in front of a mirror for a while, but James looks like he wants to ‘talk’ about something, so Sirius gamely sticks around. A few blocks away, James finally says, “So you and Remus, huh?”

Sirius _doesn't_ stop in his tracks, but his breath catches, and he needs to take a moment to make his reply sound casual. “What do you mean?”

James shoots him a sideways glance and rolls his eyes but he doesn’t seem angry or disgusted or anything. “Come on. A star orbiting the moon? Merlin I’m an idiot, how could I have missed _that_?”

“You’ve missed more than that, mate.”

James turns his head to consider him as they pass under a street light. Sirius doesn’t want to consider what his expression must look like in this moment. “...I have haven’t I?” He turns back around and they walk in silence for a bit. Finally, he asks quietly, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“That I like blokes in general or that I like Moony in particular?” Sirius asks, trying to be flippant, unused to emotional conversations like this.

James waves a hand. “Either, both, all of the above. I mean you’re my best friends, I don’t know why…” he ends frustrated, staring at the ground in front of him.

Sirius shrugs and then realizes James isn’t looking and knocks their shoulders together. “Come on Prongs. It wasn’t going to be a secret at first but then we just… we wanted something just for ourselves you know? At Hogwarts, we were all living in each other’s pockets and then we left school straight into a war and it didn’t… it was like, maybe if this one thing was just between us, then it couldn’t be ruined.” Sirius had never really tried to articulate this to anyone before and he’s frustrated that it doesn’t seem to be coming out right. He wants to be absolutely clear that he’s not ashamed, of himself or Remus, and that he doesn’t think Prongs is homophobic or whatever because those definitely aren’t the reasons, but he can’t figure out how to say all of that right.

He runs a hand through his hair and tilts his head back to look up at the sky. He can’t see it but he knows what phase the moon is in and with an instinct born from years of friendship and domesticity, he knows what Remus is doing--drinking tea and reading, curled up in the old green chair he adores and Sirius hates. He’ll probably still be there by the time Sirius gets home and that thought calms his nerves.

James bumps their shoulders again and smiles when Sirius looks back at him. “I get it but you _know_ this means you’ve unfairly skipped out on _years_ of teasing. It’s gonna take awhile to get through this backlog, lover boy.”

Sirius’s laugh echoes loudly into the night.

 

* * *

 

The moon is the only way he keeps track of time in Azkaban between periods of transformation and he _hates it_. At one point deep in his despair, he considers just blasting off his own damn hand (wandless magic was never his strong suit but he thinks he could do this one thing) because it reminds him of Remus outside and those memories are too happy, too nice to give up to the dementors.

He doesn’t though. He hangs on to the moon and the flowers opening and closing in their endless cycle and he howls on full moon nights, mourning his pack, and he curls into himself on the new ones, wondering where Remus is and if he’s found someone who knows just how to ease the aching muscles he always gets on the other end of the cycle. He is in tune with the moon even more than he was outside where he could see it. He lives and breathes and dies by the steady constant turning of the moon on his wrist.

 

* * *

 

The Wolfsbane Potion means Remus can keep his mind during a transformation though it does little to ease the pain of it. The doors are still locked, charms up in just in case, but Remus transforms in his own house now. Yes, his own house a small cottage his parents had left him when they’d died. Sirius stays through the whole thing, something they’d hardly ever dared before, remaining human for as long as he can, holding Moony till it takes over all the way when he jumps into Padfoot.

The Wolf--Moony Remus--considers Padfoot and Sirius knows that this isn’t like an animagus form that the Wolf, capital W, is still _there_ , just easier for Remus to control. The Wolf seems happy to see him, whining and nuzzling which Padfoot eagerly returns. He’d missed his pack and for the first time in many years, he feels _content_. They spend the night cuddling, twisting around each other on a rug in front of the fire. It’s not safe to go out for a run even with the potion, and Sirius is quietly grateful that the Wolf won’t start tearing at itself if it can’t. He thinks he’s getting too old and tired to corral it, especially by himself (having to fight him away from Harry and his friends had been one of the hardest moments of Sirius’s life, even more difficult than almost getting a Dementor’s kiss). But that’s not really a worry and easily forgotten and Padfoot spends the night curled into Moony’s side, warm all the way through in a way he could never be in Azkaban, in a way he’d forgotten he could _ever_ be. Remus shifts back as the moon sets and Sirius holds him through it again, holds him through the wracking pain and insistent tremors until they both fall asleep exhausted right there on the floor.

Sirius wakes up later in the morning, not quite midday judging by the way the light filters in through the windows, to Remus’s tracing his fingers gently over Sirius’s wrist. Sirius knows he’s following the lines of ink even though he can’t see, and he nuzzles forward and presses a kiss to the back of Remus’s neck. “Alright?” he asks and his voice still surprises him after so long not using it, deeper and rougher than he remembers.

“Alright,” Remus confirms and draws up the arm he’d been laying on to press a kiss to the inside of his wrist right on the tattoo. “Except that this rug is _certainly_ not as comfortable as a bed and we should’ve gotten up earlier. We’re not young men anymore,” he grumbles.

“No, we’re not,” Sirius agrees quietly. Remus has gray in his hair now and if Sirius could look in a mirror for more than 5 seconds, he thinks he’d have some too. They’re not even _that old_ , and in another lifetime, Sirius can see himself complaining that he’s still very much young, but the directions their lives have taken that makes them feel like they’ve been alive much longer. Sirius can feel Remus shift, like he wants to comfort him but isn’t sure how (Sirius isn’t sure either or else he’d help him out), and Sirius shifts too, getting up before Remus can say anything and pulling him up beside him. Sirius wraps the quilt they’d been sharing around Remus and then pushes him onto the couch. “Sit. I’ll make tea and breakfast.” He squints at the window and corrects, “... Maybe lunch.”

Remus collapses under the folds of the quilt and smiles softly up at him. “Thanks Pads.”

Sirius studies him for a moment and he looks incredibly, impossibly young, surrounded by the blanket and the decorative pillows Sirius has never understood and the sunlight filtering through the curtains lighting his frizzy curls up like a halo. He steals a gentle kiss before heading towards the kitchen. When he comes back a few minutes later with two cups of tea, Remus has fallen asleep again stretched out on the couch. Sirius smiles and sets the cups down on the side table before swiftly turning into Padfoot and worming his way under the blankets and against Moony’s side where he belongs.

**Author's Note:**

> Edit: can’t believe I forgot to say that the source of the French tattoo (and title of this story) is a Paul Elard poem and translates to “The curve of your eyes goes around my heart.”


End file.
